 2015 - 2016 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 0618-2865-01 | Philosophy of Mind | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| FACULTY OF HUMANITIES | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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University credit hours: 2.0
Course description
Philosophy of mind explores questions about the nature of the mind and mental states and events – perceptual experiences, beliefs, desires, emotions, sensations, and so on. What is the mind? Is it an immaterial substance? Is it the brain? Is it something like a computer? In considering these and related questions we will pay particular attention to two central features of the mind: (i) that mental states play a central role in explaining behaviour (for example, my desire for coffee helps explain why I’m heading to the cafeteria); (ii) that some mental states are conscious: there is something it is like to feel pain, taste chocolate, or see a sunset. We will study the various ways in which philosophers have tried to give an account of the mind that makes sense of these features.